"What is also not known is whether the cause of death was natural or triggered by this apparent assault. Whatever the cause, the commissioner must ask serious questions about the style of policing. If left unchecked we have a more violent crowd in uniform than the crowd demonstrating. "

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The most anorakish among my readers, and they alone, will recall Louise Christian's distinctive speech as a delegate at the Labour Party Conference in 1984, when the police had an especially difficult task of maintaining order along with the right to picket peacefully during the miners' strike. Referring to Neil Kinnock's remark that the police were the filling in the sandwich (i.e. between the government and the NUM), Ms Christian declared that the police were, rather, "the salmonella poisoning in the sandwich". Someone who believes that the police are a toxic influence excludes herself from serious debate on the balance between freedom of assembly and public order.

Is Kamm actually aware of the role of the Police and intelligence services during the Miners' Strike?

This habit of dredging up isolated quotes from the mists of yesteryear in order to blacken the reputation of those you disagree with seems like a defining characteristic of Decentism.

However this example seems less extreme than pissing all over the reputation of someone who has been dead for 20 years by citing something they wrote 70 years ago when they were barely out of their teens.

Not so much "it is 1933 and I am Churchill" as "it is 1983 and I am Dennis Healey".

Because obviously the best way to critique an article written by Ms. Christian in 2009 is to refer to a speech given by her in 1984, when Mr Tony Blair, was an advocate of unilateral nuclear disarmament and Mr Christopher Hitchens was an advocate of international Marxist revolution. I wouldn't envy anyone who didn't change their minds about anything substantive over the course of twenty five years but, blimey, if we can write Ms. Christian off on the grounds she said something a bit silly* once upon a time I think that our hero may find that the Decent pantheon will have to be subject to a rather thorough purge.

The Miners' Strike is a big deal for Kamm, but the problem fro him is that his general approach to the strike exposes his inner wingnut.

Kamm's position on it is: as the strike was designed to change govt policy it's thus un-democratic (he envisages all strikes purely as 'protests'); he thinks that the only way the strike could have been supportable is if it had been in favour of closing all the pits, with compensation and retraining offered to the miners; and he fully supports everything Thatcher's govt did in the 1980s to stop the strikes (most worrying of all, that one).

Every now and again this man who's usually so careful with his words will expose his utter bonkers-ness - and will also expose the extent to which he relies on pretty out of date material (his main source is a book from 1986 that has long since been surpassed). Though this is in keeping with Kamm's approach to protest generally (and this is, sadly, soemthing that you see a lot of on Harry's Place recently, or at least it was until the video emerged of unprovoked police violence).

A good piece by Aaro though he brings up his godawful response to JCDM... It'd be good if a few more journalists wrote piece like this in advance of demonstrations, however, instead of allowing the media to be dominated by police briefings about being 'up for it', about evil violent protesters, etc.